anniversary excursion....finally...part two

just to reassure you, my hubby actually had a good time on this trip. he doesnt always look like he is having fun, but as he says "how can you tell if i'm smiling or not? the 'stache covers it up." so i tell him of course you can tell the difference, now smile for this one! this is what i get:

i mean really! in what language or culture does smile=raise your eyebrows and open your eyes wide so you look like a deer caught in the head lights?! couldnt resist making fun of hubby. now on with the show!

after the lost river cave tour and nature walk that we took, we decided to go try and find this historical italianate house. after much driving around we finally found it ( i didnt think hubby would really be interested in seeing this house so i didnt bring directions to it). unfortunately, we got there right at 4pm and that was closing time, but it was a beautiful house and i hope to go back and see inside of it someday. here is a plaque describing the house and a picture of the front of the house:

since we had driven all around the old part of town, we (meaning me, hubby drives i navigate), decided to try to find our way back to the motel a different route. we probably couldnt come back the way we came if we tried anyways. we had found the house by following those handy little brown signs directing you to state parks or historical points of interest. well, i think they sucked forgot a couple of signs, so we actually passed it and then wandered around until we happened upon it. SO back to our trip thru the older downtown area... it wasnt very interesting. (our downtown is way more attractive now that they have "restored" it. actually McMinnville, TN is one of google's 3D towns.) we came to an intersection and i looked down the end of a road and saw this:

so of course i directed hubby to turn down this road so we could see what this huge building was. well it turns out to be Western Kentucky University's building (i have no clue what its called. some kind of SomebodyImportantLastName Hall) it was a cool building with a statue out front and a copper dome on top:

well when we reached this building we turned to the right and followed the road down the hill. all of a sudden hubby and i looked at each other.

me: um, i think we are actually ON the campus now, somehow

hubby: how did that happen?

me: i dont know. you would think they would warn you somehow. we need to get out of here.

hubby: how? where?

me: look! over there they are lining up floats for some kind of election parade. uh, oh. i think we are heading that way. (me scanning around, there has a to be a way out of here!) look, over there! i see the stadium. we went past that on the way in, but on the other side. the main hwy has to be that way. turn here.

hubby: i hope you can get us back to the hotel. i'm hungry.

me: (full of false bravado) of course i can.

and i actually did! now most of you are probably thinking, what's the big deal? so you went on campus? for some reason me & hubby don't have much luck when we get inside of a park, campus, anything like that. poor hubby had to drive around ft. benning with his ex for HOURS trying to find their way back out. hehe it was pretty funny too. stuck with "the b" for all that time, with nobody else to ease the tension. lol and i was back at the hotel waiting in comfort.

we made it back to the hotel just in time for me to snap this great sunset shot:

the tree in front is a little cherry tree that actually had fruit on it. i spent a lot of time by it on my smoke breaks. we both smoke, but not inside so we get non-smoking rooms and suffer the weather.

next morning is monday, my birthday! :) and also checkout day :( but we are heading up to mammoth cave to go on a short little tour before heading back home so i dont get too bummed about checking out. hubby wanted to be back home before it was dark. he really isnt much of a traveler and would rather be @ home playing in his shop than exploring, but he loves me so he lets me drag him around every now and then.

we got to the cave a little early so i hit the souvenir store and bought a bunch of little things for mementos. then we were off on a short little trip to the frozen niagra formation. as we were listening to the tour guide before we left, i realized we i had picked the wrong tour. hubby wanted short so we wouldnt be here too late, but i had forgotten that i noticed that some tours had age limits, which meant no little rug rats running around. sorry moms, i'm a grandma myself, but i'm not too fond of unruly brats on tours w/us. raise them w/some manners and i wont try to avoid the little heathens :) this tour was not one of those child free tours. so now we had to use some strategy. we got on the bus right behind the driver cuz we heard one of the demons bleacher creatures hollering about riding in the back. then when we got ready to go thru the cave we positioned ourselves right behind the tour guide. (lost river tour we never got to hear the guide due to poor positioning strategy and jabbering little monsters rug rats) we learn fast. we had a much better tour experience this time. we saw the frozen niagra formation:

and many more formations. this one i really liked and named myself because the guide never mentioned it. i call it the hand formation (woohoo how original and witty...NOT):

sadly, that marks the end of this novel saga. we went home by the interstate and shortest route, instead of finding back roads. hubby was in shop withdrawal by this time, so i didnt push my luck :) i wont bore yall any more with all of the pics that i took, but you might see random vacation shots in my future posts. we had a great time on our little weekend adventure. hopefully, i didnt torture yall too bad with my home movies posts.